Shella

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More About This Book

Overview

From the author of the acclaimed Burke private-eye series comes an ambitious and chilling novel that shows us not only what evil is, but where it comes from. For Shella is nothing less than a tour of evil’s spawning ground, conducted by one of its natural predators.

He is called “Ghost” because he is so nondescript as to be invisible and because he slays with such reflexive ease that he might be one of the dead. Once he traveled with a woman who was called “Shella” - because those who had treated her as a horrendously ill-used child had tried to make her come out of her shell. Now Shella has vanished in a wilderness of strip clubs and peep shows, and Ghost is looking for her, guided by a killer’s instinct and the recognition that can only exist between two people who have been damaged past the point of no return. The result is Andrew Vachss’s most compelling work to date, the thriller reimagined as a bleak romance of the damned.

“Vachss tells his story in an understated shorthand. . . . He seems bottomlessly knowledgeable . . . about the depth and variety of human twistedness.” —The New York Times

Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly
In Vachss's seventh novel, an asassin searches for his partner in crime, a topless dancer who vanished three years ago. (Aug.)
Kirkus Reviews
Vachss's seventh novel—and his first not to feature "outlaw" p.i. Burke (Sacrifice, 1991, etc.). The author's new antihero inhabits the same mean streets as Burke, but on the shadow side: Known as "John Smith" or "Ghost," he's an uneducated contract killer—and in a voice that's so stripped-down simple that it veers close to parody, he tells the compelling, violent tale of how he tracked down a long-lost girlfriend. John and Shella first meet in a bar where she strips: "Like blind dogs, we heard the same whistle. Recognized each other in the dark." The two hook up to play the "Badger game"—a dry-hustle extortion—until John's caught and sent to prison. There, he makes an example of one "wolf" ("I got my thumb in his eye. Pushed it through until I felt it go all wet and sticky") in order to serve quiet time for the next three years. Released, he begins to search for Shella even as he picks up stripper/hooker Misty, a born victim who doubles as a springboard for Vachss's usual street-moralizing (Shella won't hook so she's superior to Misty, etc.). John—revealed as a product of child abuse and Dickensian reform schools—travels with Misty until a lead on Shella takes him alone to Chicago. There, he hooks up with a radical Native American who introduces him to a mysterious government operative, a computer genius who asks John to kill the head of the paramilitary group of white supremacists who murdered the operative's undercover agent. In exchange, the operative will find Shella. John poses as a redneck bigot, infiltrates the group's camp, and, after much danger and death, makes his kill. He's then directed to Shella—whose surprising fate closes thestory with a punch to the heart. Despite the absurdly hard-boiled prose: a swift, savage, and unexpectedly moving exploration—somewhat reminiscent of Jim Thompson—of love among the swamp lizards.

Product Details

  • ISBN-13: 9780679756811
  • Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
  • Publication date: 8/28/1994
  • Pages: 240
  • Sales rank: 577,642
  • Series: Vintage Crime/Black Lizard Series
  • Product dimensions: 5.10 (w) x 7.90 (h) x 0.70 (d)

Meet the Author

Andrew Vachss, an attorney in private practice specializing in juvenile justice and child abuse, is the country’s best recognized and most widely sought after spokesperson on crimes against children. He is also a bestselling novelist and short story writer, whose works include Flood (1985), the novel which first introduced Vachss’ series character Burke, Strega (1987), Choice of Evil (1999), and Dead and Gone (2000). His short stories have appeared in Esquire, Playboy, and The Observer, and he is a contributor to ABA Journal, Journal of Psychohistory, New England Law Review, The New York Times, and Parade.

Vachss has worked as a federal investigator in sexually transmitted diseases, a caseworker in New York, and a professional organizer. He was the director of an urban migrants re-entry center in Chicago and another for ex-cons in Boston. After managing a maximum-security prison for violent juvenile offenders, he published his first book, a textbook, about the experience. He was also deeply involved in the relief effort in Biafra, now Nigeria.

For ten years, Vachss’ law practice combined criminal defense with child protection, until, with the success of his novels, it segued exclusively into the latter, which is his passion. Vachss calls the child protective movement “a war,” and considers his writing as powerful a weapon as his litigation.

Customer Reviews

Average Rating 4.5
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Sort by: Showing 1 – 5 of 3 Customer Reviews

  • Posted June 8, 2011

    My first Vachss novel...

    I was so sad when I finished this book. I felt like the main character had become a friend to me. I only hope Vachss writes a series based on "Ghost." I only wish I had a friend as good to me as Ghost is to Shella.

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    Posted January 2, 2010

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